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Since this is a personal blog, I figured that instead of writing a year-end review about other things, it would be better suited for me to give a year-end review of things that actually happened in my life. It’s much easier to do something like this now since chances are I captured those moments with my phone, giving me photographic proof of the events.

With all of that out of the way, here’s a month-by-month photo essay of how things went with me and the family in 2013, some of which was never mentioned here on the blog. Take a virtual trip of the things we did, places we saw, events that brought us happiness, triumph, and even sadness.

I’m pretty sure my Facebook friends are tired of hearing about it with all the stuff I’ve posted there, so here’s the last time they will see anything about it – until next year, at least.

I had the pleasure of running a 5k in that ran along the streets of Hollywood, CA. Well, down Hollywood Boulevard and back at least.

The inaugural Hollywood Half Marathon and 5k/10k took place this Saturday and despite its problems (as I will detail later), it was a great time. How often is it that you can run down Hollywood Boulevard with thousands of others and not be a part of a mob of angry citizens up in arms about [insert source of frustration here]?

But as I said, there were some issues that were outlined by some runners later, including:

Parking: Not an issue for me because I rode the MTA trains to the venue and to Universal City Hilton to pick up my bib and timing chip on Friday. Once there, though, I witnessed what other participants would later complain about: traffic going in and coming out of the hotel was disastrous. Not only that, even if you took the train to the hotel, you had to walk up a massive hill to get there. And I heard that finding a spot was next to impossible and leaving the hotel as well as the event itself was almost impossible. Again, I thank [insert appropriate deity here] for the MTA.

Cups: Again, this was an issue that I hadn’t dealt with personally but read about on Hollywood Half’s Facebook page. Apparently there was a serious lack of cups along the half marathon route which did not sit well with many. Being I ran the 5k, I didn’t have the need to hydrate as often as the half-marathoners so I didn’t even notice the problem. Water was handed out at the end of the run as were bagels and bananas.

No Electrolytes: Lack of what your body needs during a long run was also a strike against the organizers of the event. Again, not an issue for the 5k runners. In fact many of them reported no complaints about the event.

All in all, I did have a great time and even set a new personal record for a 5k:

Is it the best? Of course not, but it’s my best and that’s all that matters to the guy who used to be 300 pounds. For comparison, here’s what I logged on Fitness Tracker.

Honestly, the way I finished, I’m considering a 10k later this year.

Like all inaugural events, it was a learning experience for the organizers to improve upon for next year’s event which I am already looking forward to.